Is This The Kind Of Thing We Should Expect This Season? (w/ Player & Manager Ratings)

What can you say about that? Arsenal just didn’t turn up – and make no bones about it, Fulham were nothing special this afternoon.

It was agonising to watch.

You can only hide the cracks for so long and Eboue and Denilson in central midfield is just pathetic when you think of a club of Arsenal’s stature. We lost 3 games last season and still didn’t win the league, so losing a game so early in the season really is a bitter pill to swallow.

There are so many issues which will once again come up among Arsenal fans. Is Arsene the right man to take Arsenal forward? Why haven’t we added to a squad which is so obviously threatbare? Why did we let go of Gilberto when we so badly need him? The questions go on and on.

Only the most optimistic Arsenal fan would think we could win the league this season.

I’ve always been hopeful of this season, and like most of you believe in Arsene Wenger. But when you see a performance like this so early on in the campaign you can’t help but feel depressed. We’ve brought in Silvestre (who funnily enough is injured until mid September) and we’re waiting on a new midfielder.

The problem is Arsenal need more than one extra player.

Today at Fulham, a slow start was taken advantage of and the home side took the lead on 21 minutes. Literally seconds before, Nasri setup Arsenal’s best chance of the game which Van Persie blasted wide. A defining moment in the match – you can get away with substandard performances if you get the three points but this afternoon we weren’t at the races at all.

For the goal, captain William Gallas let Hangeland go to easily score from 4 yards out. A shocking bit of defending and no doubt he’ll be blaming his teammates for that mistake.

Arsene will blame the international week as usual, but the squad is his responsibilty and our central midfield was a nightmare. I wouldn’t expect Wigan to field a midfield like that nevermind Arsenal Football Club. The hub of the team wasn’t there and the last time I’ve seen Arsenal pass so badly and perform so poorly was against Sheffield United away a couple of seasons ago.

We laughed about Manchester United being a one man team after they only drew with Newcastle without Ronaldo last week but without Fabregas we are ten times worse. We are weak. We coped when the little spaniard was out for a few games last season but at this moment at time we just can’t go on.

Arsenal stuggled last season with injuries at important times in the campaign and you would think that would give Arsene a wake up call. Obviously that hasn’t happened and we already trail Liverpool by 3 points only a week into the season.

A lot more questions than answers after this performance and result.

Player & Manager Ratings

Manuel Almunia: 7/10
Apart from the goal and the chance from Zamora, didn’t have anything to do. Couldn’t be blamed for the goal since his defence left him completely exposed.

Bacary Sagna: 7/10
Once again gave everything for the team. Never stopped running up and down the flank and couldn’t have given any more. Delivered a fantastic cross for Adebayor’s header which hit the post. Let down by the poor performance from the majority in red today.

Kolo Toure: 7/10
Was hardly exposed and coped well this afternoon. Made an excellent recovery tackle on Zamora in the first half which could have been costly.

William Gallas: 4/10
Talks the talk but disappointed again today. Let Hangeland go for the first goal with virtually a free shot at goal from 4 yards out. Needs to take more responsibility as captain but I only ever see him having a go at the younger players. Learnt from last season? I don’t think so.

Gael Clichy: 7/10
Full of running again and put in some good crosses and made some important tackles. Like Sagna was playing as a winger in the second half.

Theo Walcott: 6/10
Looked bright at times but wasn’t given much service. Needs to be more confident and take on defenders with his pace. Replaced by Bendtner on 62 minutes.

Denilson: 5/10
Very poor in the middle. Gave the ball away far too many times and couldn’t get his game going at all. Struggled alongside Eboue and couldn’t impose himself on the game.

Emmanuel Eboue: 6/10
Asked to play in the middle which shows how desperate we are numbers-wise this season. Did okay considering he’s playing out of position but times are bad when Eboue is in central midfield. Why on earth did we let go of Gilberto?

Samir Nasri: 6/10
Suffered from the teams overall poor performance. Looked bright in spells taking on a few players but had nothing to target. Too many times had the ball but no-one would show for him.

Robin Van Persie: 5/10
Another player who couldn’t get into the game. Involved in the defining moment of the game when he missed a golden opportunity to give Arsenal the lead. Moments later Fulham scored and you know the rest. Had several decent freekick positions but failed to test the goalkeeper once.

Emmanuel Adebayor: 6/10
Tried to get involved more in the second half but with no service struggled to be any sort of threat. Had a decent header hit the post in the first half but ineffective after that.

Arsene Wenger: 5/10
Will point to the international break as the reason we dropped points but the fact is Arsenal’s squad is so thin. Emmanuel Eboue in central midfield? Times are desperate and we all know Fabregas is out injured but the thought of Cesc playing alongside either Eboue or Denilson sends shivers down my spine. The performance was terrible and Gallas is not a leader – sometimes I think he’s just at Arsenal to pick up his wages.

51 thoughts on “Is This The Kind Of Thing We Should Expect This Season? (w/ Player & Manager Ratings)”

ok but some how i dont think including gilberto would have had any differnce on the result.As last week chances and dont take them now lets think on AW is he the man yes he is,however new midfielder asap we lacked any maturity in the middle of the park today headless chickens so who will the new signing be?

“No strength in depth”, “Can’t win anything with kids”, “Arsenal youth found out” I can hear the unimaginative headlines and debates already. They all might be right but its not relevant when your 1st teamers, your experienced players, your world cup winners don’t perform, don’t lead by example. I don’t care that Denilson was out muscled today. I’m far more concerned that Gallas failed, Toure underperformed, Nasri didn’t get in the game, Adebeyor was pitiful and RVP couldn’t threaten the goal from FOUR free kicks. Four free kicks – three into the wall and one into the stands. Forget Denilson and Theo – if you can’t beat the wall from a free kick you may as well give up now. Push Chelsea all the way – as someone famous once said “my arse!” We would struggle to beat a frickin’ egg with this bunch of pricks.

for all you muppets who keep saying keep the faith …. Go fuck yourselves. Seriously, do you get it now? We are pants. Our team rests on one player and when Cesc isn’t in the lineup we are crap. Everyone has gotten so caught up in Arsene like he is some god. He can only do what he can with the players he has got, maybe he’s little drunk on what people have been saying about him because to think that this team, (I don’t care how many people are injured, this is fucking Arsenal) this team will not nought. Nothing! Gallas is a joke of a captain, Arsene probably didn’t want to hurt his feelings so he gave him back the caiptancy. He offered no motivation to get them back into the game, Eboue as perusual was crap, in fact our whole midfield was just crap. But let’s just keep the faith right???? Our pass percentage was number one last year, what do you think now? One more thing, I think Denilson was man of the match…FOR FULHAM!

fukn disgusting!! losing to fulham? fuk.cant wenger see that our so called midfiled is shit, so what does he do take off toure and bring on song in defence and leave those two idiots in midfield. denilson played like absolute shit. so did eboue and walcott. robin u a top class player but surely u should b able to beat the wall after 3 or 4 attempts. well done cliche’ u had the best game by far. seriously wenger buy some players. alonso, barry, even inler who i no nothing about! any1. plz

Van Persie really should’ve taken that chance before Fulham scored. Bendtner was awful when he came on and if you looked at Clichy’s defending, he didn’t warrant a seven. Song played well and he really should’ve started at CM. Walcott shouldn’t have been taken off because he provided us with an attacking option that the others don’t with his pace.

i really hope arsene doesn’t blame the international break, or fulham being over aggressive. we are a week into the season and our plkayers should be fit enough to cope. fulham made 2 or 3 bad tackles, but they did not bully us – they simply showed more passion, determination and desire than us (and played some decent football too because we gave them so much time and space).

we throughly deserved to lose and there were some really fundamental problems at the heart of such a dire display. our defenders could not cope with the long ball. zamora and seol were all over us in the air. the defending at the corner was pathetic by gallas.

our passing was slow, clumsy, wayward and without any fluency. every midfield player looked off the pace and eboue was arguably the best player for us in that area, which sums it up. to me nasri didn’t look fit and his first half was very poor.

up front we did not defend from the front and fulham had it easy on the ball all match. rvp and ade cruised through the game, rarely getting out of neutral.

i really do worry about our next game at home to newcastle as it suddenly seems very difficult.

as bad as i have ever seen us play and its come in our second game. i never thought we would be good enough to win the league, i dont expect us to do that, but after today i think we have more pressing concerns regarding champions league qualification.

we were below average.

well done to fulham. played in the right spirit (mainly) and got what they deserved.

i dont understand how theo gets 6 out of 10 ,for what ?? for being smart enough not to take part ? was he singing on the pitch instead ?? or was it 6 out of ten for the stupid side burns ?? please someone tell me how where ever i read this man gets graded equal with people who actually dont mind touching the ball!

I had forseen this. Arsene Wenger’s screwed up in Jan 2008 when he let Diarra go and did not bring in a striker for the injured RVP and Eduardo. Arsenal would have won the league otherwise. And instead of strengthening this season, he allowed 3/4 of the midfield to leave. The midfield last season was the best in the league. Now it is worse than Fulham’s. This is a disaster. I hope fans will not sit back and encourage Wenger to keep believing in youth. There is yet one more week in the transfer window. Arsenal need a few more good players.

djourou did well last week, i do not understand why we dropped him. gallas did badly in preseason and against west brom but wenger sticks with the man. i think we will do better with song/djourou + toure at the back. clichy was having his off day today. sagna did ok, not as good as how he usually is but he was still better than most of the players on the pitch today. eboue n denilson in midfield was hopeless. i would rather see walcott on the left, eboue on the right, nasri in the middle, denilson as defensive mid. nasri needs more time to gel. walcott needs to show consistency – consistency between games and consistency in 90 minutes. van persie is severely lacking sharpness. and i believe we can all tell what’s adebayor thinking when we look into his eyes “i cannot believe i stayed in this horrible team”
we desperately need inler or veloso (not alonso or barry please) and we desperately need fabregas back. we desperately need to sort out our defence – that means gallas on the bench and play djourou or song along with toure.
with a little bit of changes, we can see a much better arsenal side.

What really happened? Arsenal looked shell shocked today. Denilson played with two left feet today and our midfield were non-existent. Without Fab there is no creativity left.
Wenger needs to beak out the checkbook and buy Barry or Inler if not we’re headed for a nightmarish season.
One word sums up this match…EMBARRASSING!!

Denilson and Eboue in midfield is a joke!! Both are idiot!! Headless chicken!! However overall for me our team is OK with the exception of our midfield. Do NOT ever put Denilson + Eboue in the middle. Both of em keep passing the ball to fulham players..FUCK!!!!

5/10 for Wenger, are you serious? try 2/10, what did he do all game except bitch at the fourth official and refuse to take off denilson? Shit Shit Shit performance, Wenger this is all your fault don’t bitch and look frustrated, it’s all you , Twat!!

Denilson worst brazilian player ever, fucking lego head, fuck off you are complete SHIT! Pathetic and crap all round. can’t even pass to a teammate.

Shocking display from Arsenal. Denilson was awful!!!! I dont mind saying that, even if he is a young player and all. When u get on the pitch it is your got damn responsibility to be focused. And he wasn’t. We need to bring one striker, two midfielders and a new centreback. No bullshit about not bringing in new players cause then the young players don’t get the experience. We need to have a team that can challenge now and not challenge in five years. It looked to me that some of the players didn’t care at all. Gallas was crap and RVP doesn’t have the final touch anymore. It’s incredible annoying! I hope we bring players in so that a few players can get some serious competition for places in the team. I think that is the key to keep everybody on alert and focused.

If Walcott is the answer then the question must be “do you want a rabbit caught in headlights stuck out on the wing?” – he should have been loaned out to a more appropriate side back in January. He will quite simply never offer the type of instinctive and incisive option that a side like Arsenal needs without first having a spell at the school of hard knocks where people aren’t always telling him how f**king great he’s going to be (and giving him an iconic shirt number to boot). Adebayor was invisible today with Van Persie not far behind. Gallas again switched off completely at a critical moment and in my view is far short of being an Arsenal player.
Please Arsene, wake up and smell the coffee before you end up like (the great) Brian Clough circa. 1993.

I’m not one for knee-jerk reactions but in all walks of life, we are confronted by defining moments that can either make or break us. The same can be said of football. Today was one of those moments for Le Boss. I could be(and have been) accused of being an AKB but not after today. The unwavering support I had Wenger is diminishing. His body language, the whinging, the look of despair is not the same as that of the man that has taken us to three titles etc. The man on the touchline was anxiuos, desperate and never once looked like he had any faith in the players he was managing. If you cant pick a side to beat Fulham (a team lucky to even be in this division) then questions will start being raised. Ultimately, we can criticise the players til we’re blue in the face but ultimately the buck stops with the manager. Wenger has got to sort this out but quite frankly, I dont believe he can…

Last season we took one step forward and this season already we have taken two steps back! In an ideal world had Hleb, Flamini and Gilberto stayed, we should have added an experienced goalkeeper (much like the Mart Poom signing) and a tall commanding central defender. Then I believe Arsenal would have been ready to challenge for the premiership this season. But judging by what I have seen already â€“ I know it is early days â€“ but we will have to play out of our skins to finish fourth at best.

Arsenal is fast becoming a playing ground for kids to learn their trade and move on. By the time we have integrated the new batch of youngsters i.e. Ramsey, Vela, Nasri, etc in to the first team, the first team regulars of three or four seasons ago will be ready to move on i.e. Fabregas, Rosicky (treatment table in tow), Van Persie (ditto), Adebayor, etc. Arsene Wengerâ€™s youth policy and overall team strategy is not workable in todayâ€™s footballing world. I think itâ€™s time Arsene Wenger was a little more ruthless both with his team selection and in the transfer market.

The team is crying out for a midfield enforcer, a commanding centre back and an experienced goalkeeper (I just hope we never have to see Mannone on the bench). But as an Arsenal fan I already know that we will not buy anyone between now and the end of the transfer window. Get ready for a tough season ahead.

One of the worst facts to come from this afternoon was that our only shot on target was a very tame Billy Gallas header from a wide angle. As much as we can say the strikers had sweet FA service-wise, the facts show that we had 12 shots in total in the game. Admittedly one shot hit the post and one was a whisker away, but 12 shots with the only one attempt on target being a header that looked more like a back pass, that’s no where near good enough.

if all the rant from fans to AW & the board to spend & further strengthen Arsenal would not be heard/bothered… then we might need PL teams to “help” open their eyes… Today is a good example! After all those crap talk of how our youngsters are capable of helping Gunner to challenge for trophies…today result is just an eyes opener!! I wonder how AW & the board will come out & talk cock to further “console” the fans on Gunner’s abilities = illusion that had been promised years ago which still effective (but start to crack??)

Walcott shook his head when he realised he was being replaced after 66 mins. That just about sums up the problem. Older readers will remember Graham Rix’s “contribution” to the team from the wing between 1983-1986 and how Neill and Howe had a spooky blindspot to his complete ineffectivensss during that time. We ended up replacing him with the industrious, if not skilful, Hayes then Groves. Trophies followed!
We are heading the same way with Theo I’m afraid.

Theo got potensial however he needs to prove himself soon. We all know what he can do. I think Wenger has had a frustrating summer because I think he’s been trying to buy players but few players doesn’t want to play with a bunch of kids if they want to win something. We need a midfielder who can supply Fabregas and to be the mean bastard in the middle of the park. And we need wingers who can score!!!
In a perfect world we should get a “new” Bergkamp too, who can penetrate any defence in the world with one and to touch passes straight past the oppositons back four. We miss that a lot!!! All we do know is play crosses and of course it could be a nice variation but not all the f…… time. And especially not against Hangeland who could easily played centre forward in any basketball team in the world.

Norway Gooner, we will never again see another Bergkamp at Arsenal as long as Wenger chooses to do what ever he wants.
Sitrafox you are correct, the time has come to start voting with our feet! we have let him have complete control of our club, and he has decimated it, Wenger Knows…………F*** all.

A managers job is not to save money or develop players(no, it actually isn’t!). A manager’s job is to WIN football matches and WIN trophies. To set about trying to acieve this aim it’s imperative you get the players in that can do the job. Not some wet behind the ears kid who you will just sell in 4 years before you win anything.

Wenger has lost sight of the fact he’s there to win football matches and living his own fantasy where thinks his job is to nurture players for other clubs and balance the books for the club by not spending any money. These things satisfy Wenger more than winning sadly. The man has become delusional. How much longer must we put up with this?

Your analysis is spot but your ratings are horrible. Ade, Nasri, Sagna, and Toure were the only bright spots on the pitch. Denilson a 5? He was invisible unless he was passing to the wrong shirt. Clichy a 7? Hardly ever a poor performance but today was one of his worst. Walcott looked overmatched against a subpar Fulham squad and Almunia…..You say he couldn’t do anything about the goal but in reality he shouldn’t have been rooted to his spot; a problem he often has. If Arsenal would have fielded a top four quality central midfield today, and if Arsene would learn that RVP needs to either be played on the wing or dropped back behind Ade, then the result could have been much better.

At least Arsenal have lost at this stage of the season instead of getting our hopes like last season. The team was never going to win the league last season, and all the same excuses roll out – injuries. Every team has injuries, so you have to cope with them, but because of our financial situation we will never had a good enough squad.

Come on people, open your eyes. We bought Silvestre for Â£750,000! Bargain basement doesn’t even come close! Teams like Stoke, Fulham, Wigan and Hull spend more on players than we do! Would Fergie really sell Arsenal a player who he actually thought would make us better??

Clichy desperately needs to work on his defending (although he had to push forward and Denilson/Eboue losing the ball didn’t help his cause) and can we put Djourou back into the side now that weâ€™ve seen how awful Gallas and Kolo are? I seriously canâ€™t understand why Toure is always played as soon as he returns from injury even though his performances are horrible. Senderos and Djourou are better defenders than Gallas and Toure.

If Song and Djourou donâ€™t get a start against Twente, they might as well hand in a transfer request because theyâ€™ll never get their chance if they donâ€™t get it now.

Whatâ€™s more is that weâ€™re gonna have to rely on Walcott and Eboue to play RM until Rosicky comes back, and I suspect Rosicky wonâ€™t be playing full matches â€™till the end of September. What if Nasri or Rosicky get injured just before a match against Chelsea or Man U? Can we honestly rely on Walcott and Eboue?

Adebayor and Van Persie scored on international duty playing with poorer strikers against tougher opposition and yet they canâ€™t score playing with each other against Fulham. In fairness Adebayor was ok today.

I think weâ€™ll bounce back from this but weâ€™re gonna need to beat Twente by three or four goals to really get the confidence back for the players and for the fans to forget this performance. Fabregas will be a welcome return and maybe with Vela, we can actually have a proper impact sub (apart from Theo).

And as for the people who are saying itâ€™s only one game, I can see where youâ€™re coming from but we were poor against Twente and West Brom as well so you canâ€™t say this hasnâ€™t been coming.

Without Flamini our team is so so poor off the ball. It was ok when we had Gilberto â€˜cos he could read the passes and intercept them but now we donâ€™t have either and so weâ€™re rubbish at winning the ball back. We have one player who can fulfill this job and thatâ€™s Song, but Wenger refuses to play him at CM. Diabyâ€™s always injured and Iâ€™m not convinced he has the positional sense to be a DM and he definately doesnâ€™t have the energy that Flamini had.

that game could have gone on for another half hour and we wouldn’t have scored. 1 crappy shot on target in the whole match. zero control of the midfield. the midfield is normally arsenal’s strength and today it was our weakness, as it has been in the last 2 games but not to this extent.
If Den was having a stinker why isn’t he subbed off for Ramsey?

also why the hell has wenger taken so long to buy a DM when its clear we needed one in May? why did wenger want to put our first 4/5 games of the season at risk just to get a player late in the window?

its clear we are just as reliant on fabregas as man u are in Ronaldo. without him we cannot play the creative passing game. no one moves for each other so the passing just dies.
doesn’t explain why today most of our players could not pass over 5-10 yards accurately – they looked half asleep when they had the ball and were outbattled consistently.

Fulham were average but fully deserved the win, which says it all. we looked a long way of being potential champions, but a midfield of Inler and Cesc would alter the performance unrecognisably.

…well it’s interesting to see how easily you gooners after years of being either the top or in the top flight react to one loss in such a condescending manner (apart from manuel – who took the bias out of his eyes and acknowledged that Fulham turned up and Arsenal didn’t).

Take a good hard look at your support, there through thick and thin no matter the result, that is what has given us character. We may be a crap team in your eyes, but our support will be there even if we drop into the lower divisions that we have come from – could some of you here say that yourselves?

Oh! sitrafox, you come across as what most other fans in the league think of as a typical glory hunter, is you man utd shirt at the bottom of your drawer still – or was it chelsea? You have lost one game for Christs sake and you are talking about not going anymore – I’m sure the REAL Arsenal supporters will be mortified you will not grace them with your prescence.

I am sad I missed seeing Cesc Fabregas, an excellent player – reminiscent of our Johnny Haynes (who was also an Arsenal fan). You will get back to playing pretty football but start acting like real supporters. Oh! and to the bitter gooner who walked past two lady Fulham fans and spat “Fulham Shit” with venom – we just laughed at your poor sportsmanship.

Have a go – no skin off my nose – but just take the time to read this and take it in – save your abuse for some thought…

yes I wanted to mention poor Djourou as well. he has been playing so well and then gets dropped. would we have conceded from that corner with JD on the pitch? he is a better set piece defender than Gallas and Toure. I think he was very unlucky to be dropped.
I dont really like the way certain players know they will play once they are fit. thats not proper competition for places. Toure could have waited at least until JD had an average game. dropping him after 2 blinders was unfair and sends out the wrong message.
I think Twente becomes an important game, as of course does Newcastle.

For all of you taking shots at Toure, the man didn’t put a wrong foot in all game. He’s coming off malaria and still played his heart out (all while saving Gallas on numerous occasions). If you want to criticise anyone, it should be Gallas. For a captain who’s quick to point fingers, he makes a hell of a lot of crucial mistakes.

Oh and congrats to Fulham. Your passing was top notch today even though your final product left a lot to be desired (sounds familiar).

Today needs to be a wake up call for Wenger but i fear that he’s so entrenched in his ideals that he won’t see what is staring him in the face.
Just a few questions ;
1) Why did we spend Â£5m on Ramsey if he’s deemed not yet good enough to play in central midfield against the likes of West Brom & Fulham ?
2) Given that he hasn’t brought in anybody to replace him, why did Wenger let Gilberto leave for next to nothing ?
3) What’s the point of putting Ramsey, Wilshire & Gibbs on the bench if we’re not prepared to even give them 5 minutes to try and save a point ?
4) Why do we conceed so many goals from set pieces ?
5) Why do we so rarely score from set pieces ?
6) Will we ever win anything with Gallas & Toure as our centre half pairing ?
7) Will we ever win anything with van Persie & Adebayor as our forwards ?
8) Is Theo Walcott the most overhyped player in the country ?
9) Why does Wenger have such faith in players who are nowhere near good enough (Denilson, Song, Senderos, Eboue, Walcott and maybe 2 or 3 others) ?
10) Why did Robert Pires & Dennis Bergkamp, after all they had done for us, only get the offer of a one year contract when an injury prone Man United reserve get’s two ?
11) Are we now more reliant on Fabregas than we ever were on Henry ?
12) Given that we didn’t lose a league game until December last season, and that we only lost 3 in total but still didn’t win the league, can we only afford one more defeat in the remaining 36 games ?
13) Is there a real possibility that we’ll finish outside the top 4 for the first time since 1996 ?
14) Does Wenger honestly believe that we’re good enough to challenge for the league or is he just saying it to boost the self esteem of a young squad ?
15) Why does Wenger look so frustrated on the touch line these days and yet do nothing to address the reasons for it ?

I’ve always had massive faith in Wenger but I am begining to become seriously concerned about where we’re going. To think that it’s only just over 4 years ago that we went unbeaten, and how far we’ve fallen since, is frightening. With the possible exceptions of Sagna, Fabregas & maybe Clichy, how many of the current team would have got into that side. Perhaps even more worryingly, squad players from then like Edu, Keown, Parlour, Wiltord, Kanu and even Reyes would walk into the current side.

denilson don’t deserve a 5… that performance was crap! did he hit with any of his passes?
wenger lost his 5 when he put eboue in sentral mid! and did’nt help that he dropped Djourou for Toure, either. Wonder if our beloved captain had a word in it? don’t think I saw Toure holding the line once. Was his substitution because of injury or just tired? Song should have started in CM, and at least gotten a chance when wenger saw our midfield performance.

horrible feeling, loosing so much hope after just 2 out of 38 games :-/

LBNo11, point taken! the majority of our fans are very sporting believe it or not, notice how none of us have mentioned your teams unsporting behavior, taking us out at every scoring opportunity we got and thats without mentioning the filthy tackle from your player on Eboue, as for true supporters, let me put this to you, Arsenal fans spend more on following their team in Europe in a few seasons than Fulham supporters will spend in thier entire lifetime which imo gives us the right to critisise after such a lack luster performance as we witnessed today.

…Big -gun, point taken also (well 3 actually), but read the reports about unsporting behaviour of your own players from independent media – not kicking the ball out for injuries – twice, but our players did.

Oh! and it may be a long time before we compete in Europe again, but in the meantime we will probably win the award for the best fans in the premiership like we did last season (for the second time) – because we get behind the team, even when we are – not very good…

The annoying thing is we always play shite after international fixtures….why does this always affect us so much more than our rivals. Van P’s goal against Russia was amazing, but his shooting for us has been non-existant since last season’s injury. DOn’t know what’s up with denilson…has really gone backwards. Letting Gilberto go was foolish and avoidable..exactly the kind of game we need him for. Assume AW is very confident of signing another midfielder, with either a bit of bite, or real class on the ball…